About Us

Seán has over 35 years experience in evaluation in Ireland and globally, working for UN and government bodies, aid agencies, and NGOs, deploying a full range of methodologies and tools. He is also a recognised international expert in Theory of Change, on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Theory of Change in New York (headed by his friend and former Nexus colleague, the late Eoin Collins).

Globally, mainly in Asia, Africa and Europe, his domain specialties include education at all levels, access to information, sustainable livelihoods, and rural development. He maintains his work in Ireland throughout his career, for NGOs, CBOs, and state entities in a range of areas, including media, children’s services, travellers, refugees, local development strategies, and public services.

He is also an activist for communications rights, from local to global levels, and author of numerous papers and books on related themes. He has worked with Paul Butler and Neil Haran extensively, on homelessness, family support, education, local development plans and other areas.

Full CV – PDF

Paul is a Director of Nexus Research Co-operative, where he has worked for over 25 years as a research, evaluation and planning consultant. Paul has supported a wide range of organisations within community, education and youth sectors in Ireland and internationally to design and carry out research projects, develop evaluation and training approaches and strategic planning initiatives.

In recent years, Paul has worked closely with NGOs that are responding to the impacts of austerity measures in their communities, providing dedicated evaluation support to a range of community-based organisations working to challenge systemic inequalities. Paul has acted as project lead on European research programmes, bringing together other research institutes and community based organisations to develop innovative supports and tools for different target groups. Such projects have worked directly with young Travellers in Ireland and members of the Roma Community in Greece and Portugal.

Paul has also acted as external evaluation consultant to EU wide projects, involving the development of evaluation frameworks that can be applied within organisations as diverse as migrant support organisations, university departments and schools. Paul has a long track record of providing evaluation supports within disadvantaged communities and supporting harder to reach groups.

Full CV – PDF

Dave is a founder member of Nexus and has a background in academic teaching and lecturing positions in the field of sociology. He also has extensive experience of survey based research, dataset management and compilation and analysis of diverse data types from a wide range of sources. In this context he has completed survey based reports for, among others, ICTU, IMPACT, National Social Services Board and the NCCA.

Dave is co-author of Undertaking an Evaluation Sociological Association of Ireland and Combat Poverty Agency (1994 ISBN 0 9513411 2 X) which provides a series of guidelines for would be evaluators. His report Imprisonment for Fine Default and Civil Debt (ISBN 0-7557-1356-7 (2002)) for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform provided the first detailed study of the extent of imprisonment for fine default and civil debt and also about the experience of those imprisoned.

As well as being qualified at postgraduate level in sociology he has information technology qualifications and experience.

He currently has responsibility for supporting FRCs using the SPEAK (Strategic Planning, Evaluation and Knowledge Networking) FRC national database for over 120 Family Resource Centres which has been annually updated from 2004. The Internet browser based system has replaced annual reporting in terms of a document but instead provides a database and tools that allow users to seek and extract information at project and programme level in a number of different ways.

Full CV – PDF

Tara Scott is a dedicated and highly qualified professional with a diverse background in education, child welfare, and government collaboration. Tara is a PRINCE2®Agile Registered Practitioner, Independent Consultant and Associate Quality Specialist. Tara’s educational credentials include a Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology and Health Studies, both recognized by the British Psychological Society. Her expertise lies in utilizing her extensive experience to inform and enhance the design, delivery, and evaluation of initiatives, with a focus on achieving positive, sustainable outcomes.

In the realm of child and family welfare, health, and education, Tara has a remarkable sixteen-year track record in Ireland and the UK. She played a key role in the strategic development of the Healthy Early Years London project for the Mayor of London’s office, collaborating with various services to provide accessible guidance and resources for professionals and communities, aiming to reduce health inequalities in children across London.

Tara has also established herself as a key collaborator with various government entities in Ireland and London, working with the Mayor of London’s office, Islington Council, Hackney Council, Ireland’s Department of Education, DCEDIY, HSE and Tusla. Her role as Mayoress in Haringey Council reflects her commitment to community engagement and representation.

Notably, Tara possesses strong skills in structured report writing, able to effectively compile and present information for diverse audiences, including academia, government leadership, and local communities. Her reports are characterized by meticulous analysis, review, and evaluation, consistently meeting tight deadlines.

Throughout her multifaceted career, Tara Scott maintains an unwavering commitment to high quality and sustainability, consistently striving to make a positive impact in education, child/community welfare, and government collaboration.

Full CV- pdf

Sue is a social research and management consultant in the community and voluntary sector. She recently joined Nexus Europe as an associate researcher bringing a broad range of experience in the Irish not-for-profit sector. She worked in Co. Clare for over 25 years, most recently for Clare Local Development Company. She specialised in managing the community-led delivery of government programmes intended to empower communities, both geographic and target groups, to reduce social exclusion.

Sue moved into consulting 6 years ago. Sheu holds a master’s degree in Rural Development (MRD) and has a longstanding interest in social enterprise; she was a member of Clann Credo’s social finance evaluation committee for 10 years. She brings significant experience of working at the coalface with community-based organisations and a clear understanding of the numerous challenges faced by boards and management teams in their mission to achieve social change.

Since her move to consulting, Sue has worked with a wide variety of not-for-profit organisations assisting them to research the needs of their client groups, examine and design delivery models, manage organisational change, develop policy inputs, and implement communications plans. Recent clients include Cork City Partnership, Galway City Partnership, Clann Credo, Irish Local Development Network, Clare Youth Service, Limerick Youth Service and Clare Local Development Company.

Full CV – PDF

Neil Haran is a social research and training consultant, and is an associate researcher with Nexus Europe. He holds a B.Ed and an MA in Education and Development. He has spent the last 30 years working in the social sector, both overseas and in Ireland, in professional roles that have ranged from research, monitoring and evaluation; innovation fund-management; technical support and capacity-building, social policy-influencing, and organisational management and leadership.

In addition to social research consultancy, other career highlights have included Social Innovation Fund Manager under the Supporting Social Inclusion and Regeneration in Limerick Initiative of the University of Limerick; Country Director of GOAL, India; Assistant Country Director of Concern Worldwide in Uganda and National Coordinator of the Combat Poverty Agency’s Demonstration Programme on Educational Disadvantage.

Areas of research/evaluation specialism include: inequality in education; Ireland’s accommodation crisis; the needs of minority ethnic groups; mental health; prevention and early intervention services for children and families, and domestic and gender-based abuse.

Full CV – PDF

Dr. Nick Kearney is a research partner at NEXUS, and has collaborated on a range of NEXUS youth projects such as WYRED and CEPNET. He is also the research director of the Teen Yoga Foundation, a charity that promotes yoga for young people as a tool for mental health. The charity carries out research into the benefits of yoga as well as teacher training and other activities. Nick  has been working in teacher training and educational management and leadership for over 20 years, with extensive involvement in the development of new learning approaches based on the use of ICT in a wide range of educational and training contexts.  His work has included a large number of EU and nationally financed projects in a wide variety of educational contexts.

In addition to this participation in project work he has also worked as external evaluator for project consortia on a range of EU and UNESCO financed projects including for example  evaluation of UNESCO projects in Morocco relating to education about cervical cancer. He has also worked since 2002 as a reviewer of projects and evaluator of project proposals for the European Commission. and been extensively involved in training of REA staff.